Learn more about Good Calories, Bad Calories:

For decades we have been taught that the key to a healthy weight is eating less and exercising more, but award-winning science writer Gary Taubes argues that the problem lies in the kind of calories we take in, not the number.

Annotation:In this provocative report, science writer Gary Taubes shakes up the health and diet community, which, he says, promotes a totally incorrect view of why Americans are overweight. According to Taubes, the "eat less and exercise" approach is a seriously flawed prescription that has failed Americans for too long. He reexamines the ways that calories, fats, and carbohydrates affect the body, and he makes a critical distinction between what he calls "good" calories (those without carbs and sugars) and "bad" carbohydrates (which contain carbohydrates and sugar and which stimulate the body's insulin levels, leading to an increase in fat.) Exercise, he says, just makes us more hungry. Taubes also criticizes the way research is, in his view, misused by the health community (as well as by journalists). GOOD CALORIES, BAD CALORIES is a bold step taken by a writer who has stopped to ask fundamental questions about food, health, and disease.